GREEN DEALS: Marine might

An Australian expatriate company Atlantis Resources Corporation has unveiled the largest and most powerful tidal power turbine ever built, in Invergordon in Scotland. The 1MW turbine, known as the AK1000, weighs 1300 tonnes, stands at a height of 22.5m and has an 18m rotor. It is to be installed at a test facility in the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney later in the northern summer.

Atlantis says the machine is designed for harsh weather and rough, open ocean environments such as those found off the Scottish coast, but despite its size it is expected to be environmentally benign due to a low rotation speed, and will deliver predictable, sustainable power. CEO Tim Cornelius says the installation of the AK1000 is the culmination of decade's work which began in Australia, where the company launched its first pilot project in San Remo, Victoria. The company moved its base to Singapore in 2006 although much of its management team are Australians. It now has the backing of Morgan Stanley and Norway's Statkfraft.

Atlantis had considered unveiling the AK1000 at Koolan Island in WA, but elected for Scotland because of greater financial incentives. It plans a 30MW facility in Scotland to power a data centre and is conducting a study for installing up to 80MW of its technology in the Indian state of Gujarat known for their large tidal flows. Cornelius says he expects tidal power to emerge as a viable asset class. “We are at the start of a new industrial boom, akin to the development of the North Sea oil & gas fields. If we receive the same support from all levels of government that the oil & gas industry received to make the North Sea the success that it is, then the future is very bright for marine power and even brighter for Scotland.”

Fuelling floats

It seems to be the season of biofuel IPOs. Just days after the eye-popping announcement of a $US200 million IPO by the revenue-free PetroAlgae, another biofuel start up, the biobutanol producer Gevo, has filed for a $US150 million raising underwritten by UBS, Goldman Sachs and Piper Jaffray. Gevo had just $US660,000 in revenues in 2010, although it has just bought an ethanol producer, Agri-Energy, which had revenue of $US40.7 million in revenue last fiscal year and losses of $US18.2 million. Gevo has raised more than $US40 million from a group of VC backers led by Vinod Khosla. It is working on a process to produce isobutanol, a blend stock to make biodiesel and jet fuel, from fermentable sugars.

Losing charge

Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems, another of the darlings of the greentech market in 2009, is experiencing a reversal of fortunes, or at least its investors are. The company last week announced second quarter revenues of $US23 million, a gain of 10%, and a net loss of $US34 million, but is burning cash at the rate of nearly $US60 million a quarter. The cash burn and slower revenue growth has unsettled the market which has marked its stock down from a peak of over $US25 in late 2009 to $US10.40 – well below its IPO price of $US13.50. A123 Systems has announced deals to roll out 44MW of its fast-response grid storage systems in the hope of increasing its revenues.

Rising sun

It's not all bad news in the cleantech industry, with California based Sunpower, the leader in solar PV industry's crystalline silicon technology, announcing solid results last week. It expects calendar 2010 revenues of more than $US2 billion, and a profit margin of more than 20 per cent. More importantly, it is expecting big gains in efficiency, with the cost per watt tipped to fall 8 per cent this year and a further 21 per cent in 2011. This cost gain will largely be driven by the opening of a 1.4GW manufacturing facility in Malaysia, but the company's results are also notable for the number of deals it has cut for its medium to large-scale products across the US and Europe, and with a number of corporate customers including Dow Jones & Co, and French retail group Casino Stores.

-- Giles Parkinson